


All-American Afterlife

by Zekkass



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 21:23:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zekkass/pseuds/Zekkass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky's been haunting Steve since he fell off the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All-American Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

> This is legete's fault. She wrote about four paragraphs of this, gave me the idea, and didn't stop me when I kept going and fit fic around her paragraphs.
> 
> So: many thanks to her. :3

The first thing Steve wakes up to is a blurry image of Bucky standing over him, staring down at him with that too-familiar mix of worry and exasperation.

Then he blinks and Bucky's gone, replaced by the future.

\---

Bucky's had a lot to say after his death. A lot of complaints, advice, comments - an entire running commentary for Steve to hear, but - and Bucky really hates this - his best friend went and put himself underwater at the first chance he got, even when Bucky was right by his side, all but yelling at him how to use the controls, to call for Howard, that _yes_ there was time.

Time. Bucky thinks that's a cruel joke, that after everything he goes through, after he _dies_ \- instead of some grand trip through the afterlife or whatever was waiting for him - he comes to invisible, intangible, and all but glued to Steve's side.

The ghost thing is a surprise. He'd been expecting an afterlife, not the fate of haunting Steve for the rest of however long they have. Steve, though. Steve's no surprise. Who else would Bucky haunt?

He gets years to think about that, long boring years thanks to Steve's abysmal piloting skills.

See: the ocean is an ongoing shock, and okay, while he knows he's dead, it's not something that really sinks in. He'd gone shouting into the ocean depths while Steve turned blue and froze, scaring the living hell out of him. He'd choked out there, flailing in an attempt at swimming, useless in the face of whatever ghostly forces bound him to Steve, and he'd had a moment of sheer panic as he'd tried to breathe.

Water would have filled his lungs, if he were still tangible, and he would have been dead with Steve, except that he was dead already, and _what happened to ghosts bound to corpses?_

Fear filled his lungs instead, fear that led him to lean so close to Steve's chest that his hair might've overlapped with Steve's clothes, and for the longest time he had floated there, an arm automatically reaching around Steve to hold him, as if he could -

And he'd heard Steve's heartbeat. Faint, slow.

Steady.

"You punk," he'd whispered through the ice. "Why's it always up to me to pull you out of danger?"

Because that was the way of things, and dead or not Bucky would find a way to let someone know that Steve was down here. Or he'd get the ice to move, and Steve would float up into sunlight, or - any number of options, all of which led to Steve opening his eyes and...

Bucky's thoughts had faded then, as he'd remembered Steve crying into his drink again, completely oblivious to Bucky snapping his fingers in his face, to Bucky waving, to Bucky cursing at him and calling his name and okay, in retrospect Bucky's a little embarrassed at how over-dramatic he was about being dead.

The point is: he'll never get used to Steve looking at him without _seeing_ him.

The point _is_ : he faltered, when it came to the thought of rescuing Steve just to have him throw himself into danger again and again until it took, all because Steve couldn't live without his best friend.

Bucky had tested the invisible tether tying him to Steve seriously for the first time after that, and lost, still bound too closely to his best friend to get the distance he wanted.

\---

There are glimpses, moments when Steve rounds a corner and thinks he spots a familiar face, or the glint of dogtags in the sun.

It's never Bucky, never anything more than wishful thinking, but he looks for each sighting, tucks it away into his memories, and finds familiar shadows in his sketches of the streets.

\---

Years later, when the tether's longer, he sits outside and watches contrails mark the sky. Then he gets scared, the sleek silver things so unlike the army-green planes from when he was alive, and he goes back down inside the wreckage and holds his breath (what breath? but it's habit) until he hears that single faint beat again.

Every once in a while - decades, maybe - he sees somebody out on the ice. Sixty-seven years in (he'll find that out later, how can it have been sixty-seven years), he hears motors. So he goes up, sees some men on machines that look a little bit like ice-motorcycles. And he starts screaming. Screaming, jumping, waving his arms. And they come over. For some reason, they park their bikes right next to him and probe there. For one brief moment, he thinks that maybe they can see him, but no. It doesn't matter, though. Three days later he's in an airplane, staring at Steve's body being taken back to the states.

\---

The second time Steve sees Bucky, the second time he's _sure_ it's him, he's in so much pain he can barely move, and he has been doing this for so long that he doesn't know if he has it in himself to pull himself off of the car that broke his fall.

His head is ringing from one too many blasts; he’s disoriented and hurting. And still they keep coming, pouring out of the sky, and he knows he’ll go down for good sooner or later, and it won’t have made a damn bit of difference.

It's a bitter conviction, bitter and wrong, and he knows that it is brought on only by the pain and exhaustion.

He hears his name, an echo from what must be the past, and lifts his head. There's no one there, certainly no one who would know to call _"Steve!"_ , but he gets up, because he can't stay down. Bucky would have to help him up if he were still down, and he's not here, is he?

He has to get up on his own.

\---

Bucky couldn't believe it. Couldn't, wouldn't. He'd almost cried when Steve had moved into an apartment in Brooklyn, government-issue but still Steve's own, because that was it, that was the goal: both of them, home safe.

Okay, so only one of them knew they were both here safe, but that was besides the point. There were a million things to see and learn about and more importantly Bucky didn't have to worry about Steve catching a bullet.

Instead Steve caught the blues. Bucky wished he could thump him.

But about believing things: he spends time watching their new-old city, takes breaks from Steve and his depression, and one time comes back almost too late and barely catches the flight out with Steve. The tether would have snapped him back to Steve's side if he'd gone too far, but that's never pleasant, not when he'd rather be there for every single moment of excitement in Steve's life.

So he's there for that too-wonderful moment when the creepy bastard from SHIELD who sat by Steve's bedside and stared admits to being a creepy fan to Steve's face (oh, he'd laughed on that one, just bent over and laughed and laughed and Steve had nearly walked through him, what with how much Bucky laughed) and - and here they were again.

Steve has a penchant for getting himself into fantastic situations whenever he thinks Bucky's not around, and cool things like _flying aircraft carriers_ and hot competent red-heads aside, Bucky can't say he's confident in this team Steve's been saddled with at all. He doesn't like the trouble Steve's gone and gotten himself into again.

And almost falling off of that flying aircraft carrier? _Not okay_.

If Bucky weren't hell-bent on keeping Steve alive, he'd throttle him for this.

\---

He's still running hot, body on overdrive from fighting all day, and sitting down is not an option, not when he's still got adrenaline coursing through his system. Not when he's still on edge and ready to swing his shield up to block another blow, nevermind that the weight is off his arm, set inside Stark Tower's lobby for safekeeping while he does what he can down here.

Steve takes three steps away from the tower, looks around at the mess, and has to close his eyes to it. It's too much, simply too much to take in when all of his senses are still on red-alert, and so when he sweeps the area a final time, hoping that maybe there is something _simple_ he can do, something to help - he spots a guy with a large pushbroom and a bin.

It doesn't take much to get the man's spare, and then he's able to throw himself into it. A nice, focused task that he can put his back into, working off the excess energy.

His mind narrows down to the single point of the broom meeting the dust, and it's such a welcome change from keeping track of the entire battlefield around him, complete with where his team is and which alien might try to blast him next that he pauses to lean against the broom for a moment, sighing.

Hawkeye had limped in with them in time to collect Loki after Iron Man had called him in for it, the traded quips - Steve remembers them vividly, remembers everything too-vividly:

"Want to put an arrow in Loki? The line's forming at the tower, top floor."

"And if we can't fly?"

"Elevator still works. Also, if you're late, we're budging the line. Get a move on, bow-boy."

Steve hadn't the heart to tell them to cut the chatter then, and he can't help the weary smile that starts now. They won.

They _won_ , against impossible odds, and everyone came home alive.

Not uninjured, no, but Dr. Banner had come around eventually with enough energy and mind there for clothes and application of first aid.

An unexpected benefit to the team, Steve thought. Their monster could turn back into a...what was the term? A Stephen Hawking? One more term he'd filed away to look up later - something else he'd missed.

Bruce Banner, a Stephen Hawking and a medical doctor. Steve liked him. He liked all of his team, really. They'd come together when it had counted -

And they'd all gotten home safe.

He stops leaning on the broom, smiling to himself, and gets back to work, glad to let his thoughts shake themselves out. Glad that he could trust others to clean-up, when he was so thoroughly spent.

\---

He's there when Steve eats enough shawarma to feed four men, and he's there when Thor flies an already half-asleep Steve home.

Bucky's there by Thor's side as the god gets Steve's boots off and drapes a blanket over him, an oddly tender gesture. Bucky appreciates it, wishing that he could do it himself, but while he's wishing he'd like it if he could be sure Steve heard him during the fight.

He puts a hand over Steve's hair and doesn't lower it the crucial inches, afraid the cold his touch will bring would wake up Steve.

Thor turns out the light, and Bucky watches his cape flutter after him out of the room. He can't help but think it tacky, but he's a ghost and Thor is the guy with the flying hammer.

There is a moment where Thor stops and steps back into the room. He’s holding his hammer, and for a moment, despite the dark, Bucky can almost _feel_ the godly presence standing in Steve's bedroom.

"Lingering spirit of the dead," Thor says, voice a low rumble across the room, "I warn you, do not harm this mighty warrior."

Bucky's first instinct is defense in reaction to the tone, and he shifts his weight, ready to move if Thor uses that hammer. And then his brain catches up to the rest of him, and he has this moment where he second-guesses if this is actually happening. But no, Thor’s looking at him, at least his direction, and even in the dim light he can see the god’s grip tighten on his weapon. Bucky feels his hackles go up, the old defensive feeling he’s always had when Steve’s around kick into gear.

"Oh yeah?" he asks, uncertain if the god can hear him, but willing to take the chance. "Let me spell it out for you, since you've got the wrong idea."

He finds that he’s _angry,_ angry that anyone would think that he'd hurt Steve, and he doesn't realize that he's raised his fists until they’re already up.

"I _died_ for Steve, and I'd give my life to him again if I got it back. If you think I'd hurt him - " he stops as Thor turns on his heel and leaves.

And just like that, all the wind goes out of his sails. Bucky lets out a small, disbelieving laugh and sits down on the bed next to Steve, tilting his head up. He doesn’t even know what that was about.

"For a god he's got lousy hearing, Steve," he murmurs, resigning himself to - as always - another night of watching Steve sleep.

\---

The sunlight hurts his eyes as he wakes up, which doesn't make sense, not to his still sleep-addled mind. There's someone there in front of the window, and they should block the light and cast a shade, but they aren't.

The oddity of that detail is what catches in his mind, and Steve wakes up, sitting up in a hurry, rubbing his eyes, and for a moment there's nothing - no one - in front of the window. Then he blinks again, and there's a too-familiar silhouette leaning against the window-sill, back turned to him.

Steve pushes the blankets back, wonders at the blue and red of his uniform before remembering the entirety of yesterday, and swings his feet off the bed.

The figure's still there, not casting a shadow.

Steve's first thought is that he must have been hit in the head hard enough to shake something loose.

It's not what he wants, and Steve much prefers the hope that flares in him at the sight of Bucky's profile as he moves up to stand next to him.

Because for a moment he can pretend that he's looking at Bucky, and somehow his best friend never died, and somehow in this crazy future he isn't alone.

"Did you see the aliens yesterday?" he asks, deciding that if he is crazy, he'd like to believe it for a little while.

"Of course I did," Bucky says, turning his head to look at him with a too-familiar exasperated smile. "Don't think I didn't miss how you ran right back into trouble, either. Can't believe I actually thought you'd settle down and - "

Steve's finding himself liking this hallucination. (It must be, right?) It sounds just like Bucky.

Except: Bucky stops mid-sentence, staring at him.

"...Bucky?"

Bucky looks...Steve isn't sure how to take the mixture of hope and shock and wariness that crosses his face. (Hope stirs in him again, against reason, and Steve doesn't know whether to deny it or let himself feel it.)

"Holy shit, you can _see_ me?"

"I," what does he say to that? "Uh, yes?"

"Holy shit, _Steve_ ," Bucky says, and then he lunges in for a hug - what Steve automatically opens his arms for - and then Bucky is gone and Steve is freezing and frozen and what -

"Shit. Shit, sorry, forgot that'd happen, sorry." Bucky is there again, hands placed an inch above Steve's shoulders and he's looking concerned. "Steve, you still with me?"

"I thought you were dead."

"I am dead. I'm a ghost, I've been haunting your sorry ass for the last seventy years. I can't believe - look, Steve I've been with you all along." His hands go down that inch on Steve's shoulders, a touch of cold focusing Steve's attention. Bucky is deadly serious: "I'm here, so you have to stop throwing yourself into the line of fire. I can't pull you out of trouble anymore."

"Good," Steve says automatically. "If we get another attack like that, I'm not sitting on the sidelines waiting for Iron Man to save the day."

"Steve - oh, hell." Bucky drops his head, then runs a hand through his hair. "Just promise me you won't do anything as stupid as putting that plane underwater."

"If there's a way out, I'll take it," Steve says as it sinks in: Bucky was _there_. Bucky was _with him_ when he made that call and went into the ice.

That is, if he's not crazy. If this isn't some hallucination, or a dream.

…

No, he'll believe Bucky. (He always would.)

"Anything else you want me to promise?" he asks, instead of breaking into desperate relieved laughter that Bucky is _here_.

"Yeah."

"What?"

"Quit with the moping," Bucky crosses his arms now. "There's a lot of stuff out there to see, and you've been holed up in here for too long."

Steve gives him a long look, trusting that Bucky gets it, and trusting that Bucky wouldn't push him too hard. It's something he's been hearing from SHIELD, the urging to get back into the world, and he's grown to expect it, grown used to pushing back so he can go home and adjust on his own terms - even when home isn't really home.

Hearing it from Bucky is different, though.

"I'm not going to rush out and act like a tourist," he says, but Bucky grins.

"I'll show you the good places around here," he says.

"You - how?"

"I don't spend _every_ night watching you sleep."

"I think I should get breakfast," Steve says, instead of asking about the nights Bucky _has_ watched him sleep.

He has a million and one questions, but the important one has been answered: Bucky's here. Everything else can wait while he negotiates modern cooking technology for breakfast, except for one last thing, one last crucial thing.

Steve swallows thickly. "You're not going anywhere, right?"

"'Course not," Bucky says, coming away from the window. "I couldn't leave you if I tried - you're stuck with me."

"Glad to hear it," Steve says, and now he's down to a million questions, and they’ll hold until he’s gotten some food in him.

Bucky's not going anywhere. He still doesn't know when the reality of that will sink in.

\---

Bucky has a familiar pattern in the mornings, as familiar as Steve's morning routine is, and he almost - _almost_ \- unthinkingly follows it, as if today were any other day.

Steve goes to the fridge for eggs, Bucky stands next to him, making the salt and pepper shakers swap positions as a reflexive test of what he can do with his ghostly powers. (He's been practicing - there's more to being a ghost than stalking Steve, and someday he might be able to move something important.)

He almost starts a running stream of commentary about Steve's boring dietary choices, about his still plain wardrobe, about his ongoing mope-a-thon.

He doesn't. He steps away from the counter and goes to the table instead, pulling a chair out and sitting in it, waiting for the inevitable questioning. And, if he knows Steve, the extra serving in Steve's breakfast that's meant for him.

"Can you eat?" Steve asks a minute later, and Bucky grins to himself.

"No," he says, throwing an arm back over the chair and pretending that he wouldn't go right through it if he pushed. How the hell he can sit on it without falling - he has no idea.

Being a ghost is simple until he thinks about the fine details, and so he doesn't. He sits and watches Steve fuss at the stove and crack eggs and glance back at him and sometimes he thinks, despite himself, that maybe he's _glad_ he's dead.

The pan Steve brings over is filled with more scrambled egg than he'd usually serve for himself, and Bucky resists the urge to kick at Steve's ankle.

He watches Steve eat, wondering not for the first time if he is going to wake up now, that this long eerie dream will come to an end.

Sixty-seven years, and ghosts don't sleep, and he's not sure he can stomach it when Steve realizes exactly what that means. It's no one's fault, but Steve will carry that guilt, he knows it, because that's how Steve cares.

"Are you there?" Steve asks, sounding alarmed, and Bucky blinks, coming back to himself.

"Yeah," he says, looking down at his clothes. There aren't any changes, so - "Steve, I'm okay."

"You stopped breathing," Steve says softly.

"Still here," Bucky says, and he leans forward to poke at Steve's plate, a casual distraction to hide the fact that everything he does to make himself seem alive is a conscious effort.

Steve's quick to defend, but even quicker to pull his fork back, alarm crossing his face when he sees the tines go through Bucky's fingers.

"It doesn't hurt," Bucky says. "I didn't even feel it." He reaches out, sticking his finger through the tines of the fork, and watches Steve swallow hard.

"Don't do that," Steve pulls his fork away again and Bucky obliges, putting his hand on his knee instead.

"I go through almost everything," Bucky says, and he'd demonstrate, but Steve is giving him that look that says 'don't', and okay, fine, fair: Bucky had freaked out the first time he'd put his hand through a wall.

He'd taken at least a day to stop treating the world like paper and even then it took a long time ( _years_ , he'd say, but he hasn't been around the walls and doors and objects of daily life for longer than a few months) before sticking fingers through a fork became normal.

Before sticking his head through the wall to check if Steve was drowning in the shower was as easy as calling for him was.

Before -

Okay, he thinks. New rule. Since Steve can see him now (!) he can't let himself get lost in his thoughts whenever he's got a spare minute. There's too much to dwell on, and he'd much rather nag Steve about his breakfast.

Nagging, see. Nagging's fun.

"Steve," he starts, and relishes how Steve _hears_ him, looking up from his eggs again. "The doc said you needed a lot bigger breakfast than that. Remember?"

"Bucky," Steve says with a sigh.

"I'm not going to sit by and watch you starve yourself." (That had been chilling information to hear, that Steve's increased metabolism meant that he was all but killing himself with just the standard allotment of army rations.)

"If I eat as much as they said to, I'll clean out my fridge in a few days."

"So?" Bucky says, and slings his arm over the back of the chair. "Buy more food. I'll help you pick out what to get."

"I am _not_ buying a grocery store when this is enough."

"Steve, in case you haven't noticed, they aren't exactly suffering any shortages."

"Bucky," Steve says patiently, "I am not letting you pick out my groceries."

Bucky doesn't miss the twitch at the corner of Steve's mouth, though, and he grins at him, loose and easy.

"You'll come around sooner or later," he says, and Steve just shrugs at him, resuming his meal.

There's a comfortable silence while Steve polishes off both servings of breakfast, and as Steve scrapes off the last flakes off egg from the pan onto his plate, he speaks up again.

"You said you could go through almost everything," Steve says, almost casually.

"Notice how I'm seated right now? And not halfway to Tibet?"

"So..."

"I don't know why, but I'm not gonna fall through this chair unless I want to."

"And the floor?"

"And the walls," Bucky goes to rap his knuckles on the table, and shrugs when they go through. "Everything else is just like that."

"Do you know how it works?" Steve asks with too-bright eyes. _He's faking the interest_ , Bucky thinks, and doesn't press on it yet.

"I don't think about it much, Steve."

"I can see why," Steve says dryly, but there it is again, that look Bucky's gotten too familiar with. He looks like he's been punched, like he's going to cry, and the casual curiosity is flaking away finally to reveal grief.

Bucky thought this kind of thing would wait until they were out of the kitchen, but whatever: he has to say something while Steve's still got a chance of hearing him. It may not penetrate even now, but he'll just have to repeat it loudly until someone believes it.

"This is my new normal, Steve. I walk through walls, I can stick my hand through the table, and if I try to touch anyone, they just get cold. The way I see it, it's nothing to cry over. It's the way it is for me these days, and it's not all bad - hey, at least you can see me now. So quit looking like that."

Steve sits back, blinking rapidly, and goes to touch Bucky's hand before he remembers and stops himself, hand awkwardly stretched out.

"Sorry for dying on you," Bucky says, pointedly pulling his hand back.

Steve opens his mouth to say something, guilt crawling across his face, then closes it and it's a moment before anything gets said.

"I need to check on the team," Steve says as he gets up, and that's a clear dismissal. Probably for the best. "Are you coming?"

"Of course I am," Bucky says, and gets up with him. There are a dozen weird details about being a ghost that he'll have to tell Steve about sooner or later, but right now - yes, of course he's coming.

Even if he could stay behind and haunt the neighbors for shits and giggles, he'd tag along with Steve.

\---

Suddenly he's got Bucky at the corner of his eye or muttering comments under his breath or any number of things that no, he can't stop in the middle of a conversation with Stark to glare at Bucky for.

It's simultaneously horribly irritating and the best thing that's happened to him in a long time.

He chases down guilt for that, because Bucky is _dead_ , he is a _ghost_ , and how can he be happy when his best friend is haunting him? But he still wants to laugh whenever he sees Bucky, the same kind of desperate relieved happiness that springs up when he meets Stark again.

It isn't the time or place (and Bucky is behind him, whispering about how rich can Stark be if he can't afford a non-tacky pair of sunglasses) but someday he will do the right thing and tell Stark that his judgments on the Helicarrier were wrong. He was wrong.

It isn't the time or place for much in the way of personal business, truth be told: he has to put apologies and Bucky out of his mind as the team decides to let Thor take both Loki and the tesseract back to Asgard.

He has to put Bucky from his mind again when it comes time to confront SHIELD about the source of the bomb set on New York City, and again after. Everything that goes into being an Avenger, and that goes into fighting to save the world - he can't stop to talk to a ghost.

"Don't worry about me," Bucky says from behind him at one point, and Steve can feel the cold touch of Bucky's hand on his shoulder. He spares a nod, but no more - Bucky understands, he's sure, and he's sorry that he can't introduce his friend to the team.

He's sorry for a lot of things these days, but there aren't opportunities to begin to make amends. Not yet.

\---

Bucky has to stop himself from turning to talk to Steve, an impulse he hasn't felt in decades, and he treasures it. He'll have to tell Steve he doesn't mind watching, that being consciously ignored is the best thing since Steve looked at him and _saw_ him.

Steve won't understand, but that's okay.

That's okay, and Bucky's looking forward to spending the rest of his unlife explaining things to Steve until the guilt stops haunting him.

(Bucky won't stop haunting him, not ever, not if he has any say in it.)

\---

"It's just like old times," Bucky tells him days later, while they're watching a movie together. Bucky's seated next to him, arm placed up around his shoulders and Steve hasn't the heart to tell him that he's misjudged - Bucky's hand is half in his shoulder, creating a cold spot that chills down to the bone.

The movie's some modern thing that's not terrible, but Steve's honest with himself: he's been more focused on glancing at Bucky every few minutes, distracted by his presence. He never wants to get used to Bucky being there, and wouldn't trade in the distraction that Bucky is for all the world.

The bowl of popcorn is nearly empty and the movie's nearly over, and Steve says, "Just like old times?"

He can't help the skeptical tone: Bucky's hand is in his shoulder, they're watching a movie _in his apartment_ , and there's Bucky himself dressed in an odd mixture of modern casual clothes with his dogtags hanging out. ( _Call it a ghost trick_ , Bucky had said, his only explanation for the change. _I'm not wearing army digs for the rest of your life._ )

"Yeah," Bucky answers, quirking his mouth. "Just like old times. You're thinking too much and missing out on the good parts."

Steve reaches for the popcorn, thinking of the way Bucky's face lit up at some funny line he doesn't remember, thinking of how the lights from the movie hadn't reflected on Bucky's face, an odd pattern of reds playing on the couch around him but not on Bucky at all, some weird trick of the light he'll attribute to Bucky's ghost state.

"I'm not missing anything," he says, thinking: _you're here, after all_.

"Uh-huh," Bucky says, clearly unconvinced, but Steve can see the smile.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Haunting of Captain America](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255768) by [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9)




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